You miss the game where you had a 1/9 chance of your loot dropping every week and then had to hope your loot didn't either go to someone else or get ninjad? Where the only way to experience the game content was to travel upwards through the content and where only 1% of players ever got to see the endgame content?

Look dude, Vanilla WoW sucked balls compared to WoW now. Yes, it had some things that were preferable but the majority of it was time-sinks, rep-grinds, and money-sinks. The problem with WoW is that it has lost a lot of important elements and recently we've not been engaged in the story, however WoD looks to really change all of that and we can only hope Blizzard can get the difficulty curve right this time.

It was hard. Everything right now is given to you on a silver ******* platter. You actually had to work at **** back then. And it used to take skill. Now everyone rolls the flavor of the month class. It's ******* ********.

No, WoW did used to be more challenging, but y'know what? It was also BORING AS ****! I have **** to do and I'll be damned if I'm gonna spend 6 months on and off levelling up a character so that I can begin the mind-numbingly long and tedious slog to getting every... single... piece... of gear... that you would need to conquer your current tier before going up to the next their. Only 1% of people got to see the full endgame of Vanilla.

So I would like more challenge and Blizzard seems to understand there's no challenge left in WoW and are experimenting in ways to bring back that element, but I don't play WoW for the gameplay, I play it for all the other reasons, and those are the reasons that really make it distinct from the other MMOs out there. Things like lore and characters and atmosphere and variance and fun and... you get the idea. WoW has nailed a LOT of things over the past few years and it is only getting better, they just need to find ways to bring back that optional difficulty, which they look like they're going to be doing.

And better the flavour of the month class than the classes that had completely useless specs! I swear the number of people who never got to tank because other classes were just so much better at it and the same with healing... at least now they're balanced!

But the problem is a little more than just the LFG system. The reason WoW changed away from the system of rep-grinds is that in TBC you needed them for a -lot- of things and it became an insurmountable wall that many casuals couldn't get over which led to, once again, about 1% of players seeing the Sunwell (where there are even more rep grinds).

The problem is not that WoW has changed, rather that it has improved. Previously WoW's difficulty curve was half about devotion of your time and effort gaining rep and grinding levels. However that only made sense when everything was new content, now there's about as much new content as Vanilla content in WoW and people pay to get to the new content. If 1-90 worked the same way it did for 1-60 in Vanilla... well it would be a nightmare.

And the rep-grinds are out-dated too. Emperor Shao-hao is a nice, fairly fresh take on the system, where you are rewarded fairly constantly for your actions and Shao-hao is just something you get for devotion on top of all of that. Add in it being optional and giving vanity items and you've got a good system.

People don't have the time anymore to devote to endless rep-grind to get into raids that their loot never drops in with only a few months window to get their gear before the new patch hits. Blizzard has it more at 50% now, where you can be fully geared at approximately half-way through the patch cycle if things don't go -too- well for you, meaning it is much easier to just pick up and raid. It also allows people to join the raiding tiers even if they join the expac late in the cycle whereas perviously they would have all of those walls to overcome one after another and purchasing the expacs would just be a waste of time for them.

Really the people who love vanilla have 'some' reasons to love it but most of them are really blinkered to the plights of the changing market and the demands of adult life.

I was playing WoW with my friend doing random dungeons while making everyone take off their pants or we'd kick them after that we went to goldshire to have a naked dance party while trying to get guild signatures for a guild called The Pantless Raiders. It was fun so I don't think WoW is dead to me yet... Yet...

However, if only 1% of the players see the content that means Blizzard are making less content for the other 99%. It basically equates out to "Yo, vast majority of people who give us money. **** you!"

No, that's total ******** which just won't fly in the current markets nor should it. A game shouldn't be built specifically to be exclusionist. It should be built to be inclusionist, as in you can all join in, but with more rewards for those willing to take them, e.g:

What is more, if you weren't one of that 99% of players, how the hell would you feel? You join the game later than other players meaning you aren't up to speed with the current raid progression and never get to see the endgame because none of the other guilds can be bothered doing the raids with you just so they can help you progress? Pfft, screw that ****. Screw allowing people to have holidays or just take breaks from the game without suffering massive penalties. If you fall ill for a few months? **** you, bro, the raid progression has passed you by and you're not going to climb that ladder unless you're 'really' lucky, who cares how devoted you were!

Instead the game's going to be about grueling time-sinks and rep-grinds and attunement quests and heaven help you if you have prior commitments!

WoW currently doesn't reward people enough for devotion, but Vanilla viciously penalised people for missing even a few weeks of raiding or joining late. Blizzard understand this and seem to be taking steps to make it more user-friendly whilst also making it more rewarding. We've seen things like the Black Market AH come into play as well as the rumoured 'Mythic' dungeons.

Point is, that may be the game 'you' want to play... but it's not the game the other 99% want to play... nor is the game you'd want to play if by some bad luck you ended up as a part of the vast majority of people.

But not everyone 'has' the time. I've also given numerous examples of how even those who do have the time will be hampered by the gruelling system.

And no, the game's not dull without the endgame content. In fact WoW is better than ever in that respect. However it doesn't change the fact that Blizzard don't have enough ***** to give to make content that only 1% of people will get to enjoy when they could better apply their time, effort, and devotion into things everyone can enjoy.

Everyone should be able to kill Garrosh Hellscream, but not everyone should be able to kill him on Heroic.

I don't care I liked the old game better i loved the challenge it had I shouldn't have to play end game raids just to have a challenge

**** your ********

The old game was better even when people made your rage you still played

It was never boring even when you had to grind which really was no reason to because the **** load of quests

walking to the instance/Summing stone was an adventure on its own now its just click a button wait five mins OH IM HERE

The old talent/classes where more fun because u could play more the way you wanted like *shaman tanking*

I would rather play old wow for 6 mouths to get to lvl 60 then i would play New wow for 3 days to get to lvl 90 another 2 to finish end game HOW IS THAT ******* FUN

New wow has no challenge and no sense of accomplishment

"1/9 chance of your loot dropping every week" I would rather get 1 piece of gear a mouth then full epic ilvl 500+ in a day

Ive stoped playing wow you know why BECAUSE IVE GOT EVERYTHING DONE No point in raiding end game when ive got all my gear and no point in pvp when ive got all my gear so **** YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO THINKS NEW WOW IS BETTER THEN OLD

I loved the old talent tree. Getting something new every time you leveled up, which was actually an accomplishment back then. I miss actual customization. Blizzard has gone to ****. They even did the same crap with Diablo 3.

At least there's still D2. No ****** patches or expansions are going to make D2 go away.

The old talent trees where you got largely inconsequential **** every time you levelled up? Yeah... woohoo. So sad that ****** gone and those increases and talents got added to your character without you having to click a damned button.

HOWEVER! I will say this. If they brought the old talent trees back alongside the current, far better system, and made it so that it was PvE/Cosmetic bonuses only to stop people from creating massively imbalanced spec-combos which break PvP even more than it is already broken, THEN I would be okay with them bringing them back.

It's a minute thing but that little button-clicking was something nice to do every level or two. If it is brought back in a manner that doesn't break the game or feel largely inconsequential like they did beforehand, I'm cool with it.

'MY' ********? You've got some really rose-tinted specs there, bro. But let's deal with this one point at a time.

Yes, the game is much less challenging. Or at least it is in MoP. Cata was pretty challenging in those dungeons until **** got nerved and everyone ended up with gear that made the heroics redundant. So yes, WoW is less challenging.

People making you rage? What, you mean in those 40-man dungeons which killed your frame-rate and were almost impossible to manage, where you either needed to be in the best raiding guilds to even attempt the most basic raids? And then you'd be grinding away (and yeah, it counts as grinding) for that 1/9 chance of your loot dropping and praying to god one of the 25-40 people you were in there with didn't need/ninja that loot so you'd have to wait until next week to get your most basic ****.

And there are less quests now, but that's because levelling is quicker because there's more of it. And the quests are 'much' better, especially in Pandaria where there's a mix of the light-hearted and the dark. Most of the old quests were just junk, with only a few Mankrik's wives scattered here and there. At least now the quests lead up to something like the Lillian Voss arc in Tirisfal.

Yeah, walking to the instance was fun, but y'know what wasn't fun? There being no use to most of the instances because nobody would ever go with you to them. Unless you were in an ultra-huge guild or got yourself boosted you weren't going to find much use for the dungeons with only the easiest to get to being used. I can't remember doing Zul'Farrak more than 3 times until the LFD system came out.

I actually miss Shaman tanking and yeah, you could mix and match. But y'know what else you could do? Create horribly imbalanced specs and rule at the poorly-implemented PvP and a lot of the specs never got used because there were better options.

Still Don't want to play a game that i can max everything out in a month and yeah some instances were hard to find people for but when you did i was alot more fun then the 5 min instance runs now adays "Zul'Farrak more than 3 times" that most have been your realm because i did that instance countless times ohhh i so wanted that epic 2 hander ive ran every old instance with pugs atleast 10 times (DM was a bitch to get in tho) on each toon but it was still more fun then the 5 mins dont talk just dps BS

(Really, red-thumbs for disagreeing with you? C'mon, dude, be better than that.)

Yeah, I miss the talking too, but that's something you remedy by going in with a levelling guild which, even on the small realms, you can do. But that also brings up an interesting point, that being that if you weren't on one of those massive realms full of people you couldn't ever do any of the instances because nobody was ever around to do them. If you wanted to play WoW you had to play it balls-deep, which, as I've said, just isn't possible for a lot of people, even more-so in recent times.

If you don't want to play WoW because you are bored with the gameplay? So be it, but I've already pointed out there's more to do in WoW than the raids/dungeons. A ******** more, and best part is when you're doing it you get to talk to the people you're doing it with, have a laugh, and generally get the most out of WoW.

6 months playing alone through largely dull content? Yeah, that sounds like fun! Unless you were 14 and had nothing else to do and no commitments to school you wouldn't be seeing 60 this side of the century. Yes, I would love it if there was more challenge in levelling, but that challenge should be optional and it should really speed up the process of levelling because going from 1-90 through content you've already done is pretty dull, especially when you want to get to the new stuff with all the new mechanics and gear.

It was easier to placate people with levelling in Vanilla since it was all new content but times change, dude. ****** old and even with the refresh from cataclysm the zones still have the same feel to them, only this time there's story lines and different mechanics to vary it up.

"New wow has no challenge and no sense of accomplishment" Again, I agree, but Blizzard are working on that one. In Vanilla that challenge and accomplishment came from your total, utter, unflinching devotion to the game and people just don't have that time. They've grown up and have jobs or university and other commitments. Blizz needs to find a different way to give challenge and accomplishment and they're on the right track, even if they're taking their sweet ******* time to get there.

"1/9 chance of your loot dropping every week" I would rather get 1 piece of gear a mouth then full epic ilvl 500+ in a day

What? So you get your full set... in a year? Half way through the expansion's cycle? Not counting in the patches that make your gear redundant? Not everyone can raid every week and most patches last about 3-4 months. You can be fully geared in a month or two, so you only need to raid 50% of the time to reach max gear, basically meaning your don't need such total, unwavering devotion to a video game.

"BECAUSE IVE GOT EVERYTHING DONE" - I bet you money you've never RPed, 'cus the RP servers are the only place who play WoW the way it's meant to be played, like an RPG. Yeah, it's a little hit and miss but you can't look down on RPers when you've played Vanilla WoW, basically the pinnacle of gamer nerd-dom.

If you were an RPer you'd not have gotten everything done 'cus people come up with new **** to do every single day. I don't even ******* raid anymore or do the dungeons since I've only got time to do so much each day and the RP is much more fulfilling than raiding/dungeons -ever- were for me. So guess what, bro:

**** YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO THINKS OLD WOW IS BETTER THAN NEW WOW BECAUSE IT JUST - ******* - AIN'T!

Naw, that's a little mean for me to end on...

Look, bro. WoW's not what it used to be and for the most part it's better off that way. Sure, I miss a ******** from Vanilla but I also respect that I don't have that time anymore. At least I get to experience everything WoW has to offer despite my hectic schedule and when I've done everything the game gives me to do, I make my own with the hundreds of other people on the RP servers.

Blizzard are really moving in the right direction and fixing the problems that were caused by fixing the problems that were caused by fixing the problems that were caused by Vanilla's demand that you sink all of your time into it.

I love WoW for the story, the environment, the creativity, the art-style, the characters, and the overall atmosphere than I have ever given a damn about gearscore or raid progression. It really looks like to me you're so hung up on the past that you've completely shut yourself off from seeing all of the things from WoW that have just gotten so much better over time and are only getting better still and all the cool new things that just work so well and keep WoW as the only legitimate subscription MMO left and also one of the only good MMOs in the market at all.

"6 months playing alone through largely dull content?" you most have been a sad sad man if thats what your vanilla wow was like because i was i a group 90% of time questing with randoms and the 10% i wasn't i didn't want or need help and it was never dull

just don't reply because im not gonna talk to you anymore how can you like a game that your done with in a mouth over a game that last years (then cata came out >.>) oh and yeah ive tryed the RP servers many times NO ONE ******* Roll plays on them ITS THE SAME AS THE REST OF THE SERVERS and if i do find some people roll playing on them its just 2 fat guys roll plying as female night elf lesbins

"oh and yeah ive tryed the RP servers many times NO ONE ******* Roll plays on them ITS THE SAME AS THE REST OF THE SERVERS and if i do find some people roll playing on them its just 2 fat guys roll plying as female night elf lesbins"

Whut? I don't know where you're from but generally the RPers all congregate on the one server per region where hundreds of people take part in campaigns and story lines at a time that last weeks if not months with new **** to do every day. It's freaking dope, bro.

I figure you were looking in the wrong places.

"SO **** YOU AND YOUR FAT PANDA MONK"

1) I don't roll panda... I'm fine with them but I've got better race/class combos to play.
2) I don't roll monk. (I play WoW to be Beowulf or Arthur Pendragon, not Jackie Chan.)

Isn't WoD a time travel expansion? I don't get it. Its either a dragged out CoT dungeon (which got pretty old after the first few runs) or your going to change history, which changes everything after WoD.

If its time travel and your not changing it, nothing you do makes any difference because the world will be destroyed and turn in to that awful Burning Crusade zone.

It's not time travel, it's alternate reality. You will be changing the course of history but not of Alpha-Azeroth where we've been up until now, but in Beta-Azeroth. Everything will have consequences and it also means all of those old lore characters aren't dead yet. Medivh is still on Beta-Azeroth with Sageras possessing him, Arthas has yet to be born, Quel'Thalas never fought the Amani, the Old Gods are still asleep. It's a blank slate for Blizzard to go nuts with!

Yeah, apparently it's some time-travel stuff..
And yeah.. it doesn't quite make sense, but I haven't heard the official story behind it.
But I've heard from some people that claim they know the story.
Supposedly Garrosh breaks out of his prison in Pandaria to wreak some more havoc like the douche he is. He runs into one of the Bronze drake guys, the one from the Timeless Isle, and he helps him go back in time. Why? I don't know.
But Garrosh goes back in time with his knowledge of the current Horde and teaches them how to make the heavy iron metal weaponry he loves, helping them fight against the Draenei much easier, and apparently sooner than they were supposed to. Varian Wyrnn hears about this **** and get involved the same way, aiding the Draenei of the past.

That doesn't really explain much but that's apparently the basic plot of it. At this point in the game it's all timey whimey and Blizzard can really do whatever they want.

Actually, it's alternate universe, not time-travel. Garrosh went from Alpha-World to Beta-World like the Beta bitch he is.

Point is, that is old warcraft before "WCI: Orcs and Humans" happens. A completely alternate timeline that is now forever changed by what happened in ours. Medivh is still there with Sageras possessing him, Tyrande isn't a pussy, and the Legion haven't corrupted the Orcs yet, nor will they. It is a complete blank slate to play with.

Also, as for the story, that's a little wrong but you've got the gist of it. Grom Hellscream is leading the Iron Horde and this ain't WC:III Grom, this is the Grom that put the HELL in HELLSCREAM! Thrall's father is still alive and he has yet to even be conceived. A LOT of good **** has yet to happen, meaning a LOAD of NEW **** can happen in it's stead! Plus, this time Velen is pulling no punches. Previously he tried to fight defensively because he knew the Orcs were under the manipulation of the Legion but this time he knows there is something seriously wrong with the timeline like the prophetic ************* 25,000+ year old badass that he is and he and his niece will be kicking some major ass in the next expac.

Also, there's no Alliance/Horde in WoD, at least not as it was in MoP. Because of the truce the two factions can't fight, meaning instead all of the stuff going down is being done by adventurers... the player characters, hence why we're getting garrisons.

That does clear things up.
And I like it.
Thanks.
Also, I do have a fair bit of knowledge of the lore of Warcraft, I've read a few of the books. (All of them except for the most recent one, as far as I can tell)

What exactly is changing the situation from having the Legion being involved? It seems Ner'zhul and Gul'dan are still... warlock-y.

"YO, DADDY! DON' YOU LISTEN TO DIS GREEN-ASS BITCH! HE GONNA BETRAY YOU AN' **** DIS WORLD UP AND YOU GONNA GET KILLED BY A BIG FAT DAEMON SLUG, AIGHT?! SO INSTEAD I GOTZ DIS MAD-CRAY TECHNOLOGY, YO! IT'Z THE ******* ****! YOU GONNA USE DIZ CRAP TO **** OVA DEM DRAENEI DEN WE GONNA GO TA MY PLACE AN' **** **** UP LIKE A MOFUKKIN BOSS!"

and then Grom's all like: "I'm proud of you, *****."

and then Garrosh is like: "Foo I know dat ****!"

Then he goes and cries in the corner like the bitch he is that he made his daddy proud.

Drakka, Thrall's mother, declined Durotan's (the future Chieftain of the Frost Wolves and eventual Warchief) proposal the first time, instead going hunting with him. Also, when he told her to stay at home with their baby whilst he and the rest of the Horde charged into Azeroth she cut up his face to remind him that she is Drakka, the most bad-ass Orc that ever ******* lived who could put even Durotan and Ogrim in their ******* place!

Well, the objective isn't to stop Garrosh ******* **** up since he's already done that and it's Grom who's in charge now so the name of the game is to stop the Iron Horde from running rampant. And these aren't the world-weary orcs from WC:III. These are THE orcs. The guys who have never had a full-scale horde before and have no generals to tell them better. The smartest of the lot, Durotan, isn't even a part of the Iron Horde since he knew it would lead to trouble just like he did with the original horde.

And for the Draenei it's about meeting their relatives and friends that died both during the war with the Orcs and when Draenor split apart.

The Ogre Empire (the only empire on Draenor) is still in full swing and really it seems more like for WoD the name of the game is damage control, making sure that Gul'Dan doesn't summon the legion since he's not part of the Iron Horde and he's gonna be the big-bad for the alliance starting-zone, and... well... you get the gist of things I'm sure.

Basically, I think this is going to be more about the stories of the individual lore characters, like it was in Wrath of the Lich King. Only this time... we don't really want to kill them. Every orc you kill is an Orc that may well still be alive in Alpha-Azeroth. Hell, if you're an Orc your character may well be one of the trash mobs here if he's old enough. We don't want to kill Grom or any of the other Orc Warlords since they don't know any better and this Draenor is an unspoiled paradise. Hell, there isn't even a Zangarmarsh yet! These Draenei have never turned into Broken or learned Shamanism. There is a LOT of potential both in this expac and in the exploration of the rest of Draenor and Beta-Azeroth.

Ooh the possibilities.. you're getting me excited with these ideas, I hadn't considered a lot of this.
I quit WoW recently because of how difficult it is to do anything but it's only because the server my mains are on is pretty much a ghost town, going from high pop to low since Cataclysm.
But this has made my already kind of set decision even more sure. When WoD comes out I'm getting back in the game and transferring the hell out of my main to somewhere better. Never cared for PvP, but I love raiding and the lore involved. (And I'd RP if I could find the right server for it..)

If you're on the EU servers then the place you want to go is Argent Dawn, but I can't help you with the US servers. Just post in the roleplay thread on the forums and ask for some help getting into RP, if they're anywhere near as nice as the guys in the EU you shouldn't have any trouble.

Also, don't forget this lovely little tid-bit... Sylvanas Windrunner is still alive in Beta-Azeroth... and her sister, Aleria, never got lost in the Outlands. Aleria is the only thing outside of the Forsaken that Sylvanas gives a **** about anymore and I doubt either her double or her older sister (both of whom are old-elves, as in they kill the **** out of whatever they ******* please) will think too highly of her.

Oh, and let's not forget Ogrim Doomhammer is still alive and well. You've got the possibility that if Sageras can't manipulate Medivh into opening the portal to Draenor, since it requires people to work on both sides of the portal and Gul'Dan may end up dying... again, he may change his tactics to converting the humans, leading to the Humans being the minions of the Legion. There is just too much here to work with.

The Aspects still have their powers. Deathwing is still alive and I'm not sure but I don't think he's gone mad yet either. The Nerubians are still all alive in the north. No Death Knights have ever been made since they were originally orc warlocks in the bodies of human knights. No Dragonmaw clan since there's no dragons on Draenor.

Cenarius never died. The Legion never invaded Azeroth the second time meaning the Nelves never met the humans. Illidan is still locked away in the Barrow dens. All of the Troll Kingdoms are still alive and well as are the seven kingdoms of men. Kezan is still populated with Goblins and the Worgen never became a problem. Dalaran's still in the EK, Ragnaros is still alive, The Exodar is still part of the Tempest Keep which is still in Draenei hands. The Tauren will be ravaged by the centaur without the aid from the Horde.

One of the things I love about WoW's lore is how, no matter what you're talking about, it always comes down to either the Old Gods, the Titans, or Sargeras.
I feel as if the one of those will be greatly involved in this mass paradox alternate reality..
Surely they would feel/sense such things.

There was life before the titans that wasn't related to the old gods. However even barring that I personally dislike how everything is liked back to either the Burning Legion or the Old Gods. Yes, it is nice to know there is a persistent presence in the world that orchestrates a lot of the trials you will be forced to overcome, the way Warcraft is set up it feels as though the only solutions are the Old Gods or Legion... except that's not the case with WoD (at least I hope not.)

Whilst Garrosh is tied to the old gods through what he did in MoP this seems to be something he is doing of his own volition, so we may well get our first expantion that isn't massively influenced by one of the two big-bads of the series, and I'm okay with that.

Well a lot of what you mentioned happens WAYS after the events at Draenor.
The only thing I know for sure is that, yes, Deathwing has already been corrupted by the Old Gods at this point.
He was ****** up since the Legion first attempted to reach Azeroth through Azshara.

Why? So we can dilute the lore even more? Draenei were put into the game years ago and since then have barely gotten any development, it is only recently that Blizz has turned their focus towards the neglected races. New races should only be added when they serve the lore.

1) Good god no. Firstly, Demon Hunters would have no place in the game seeing as they fight like rogues mixed with warlocks, meaning both their attack-style and skill-sets are in the game already. Adding them would be pointless.

2) As an RPer I can promise you no good will come from adding DHs in the lore like that. Keeping them subdued is the best thing to do because for one, it keeps them interesting (I mean... Blizz added Death Knights, arguably one of the most interesting elements of WCIII and one of the best heroes to play as and since WotLK they've... uhm... they've done... hrm... I'm sure they did something...)

3) The last thing the game needs is -another- class to throw the balancing off-kilter once again. WoW PvP is awful, truly awful and was clearly an afterthought, adding another class would just compound the myriad problems Blizzard has been trying to address since day one of the PvP system.

4) The programming and lore-work time that the DHs would take up means time isn't spent elsewhere, where it is more direly needed.

5) What would be 100 times more beneficial to WoW would be to add a 4th spec to all of the classes like they did with druids. Through this they give everyone something new to play with without the harrowing need to level through all the zones again. Yes, it would be a nightmare to balance, but it'd offer more to the game than a new class would and if the alternative is just to add a new class that would imbalance the game anyway then there's no reason not to add new specs.

In fact I'm pretty sure Blizzard is already working on new specs for each class given what they said about thinking about introducing a new 'support' role similar to 'tank', 'damage', and 'healer'. The simple fact they're even thinking about that implies they're either going to change the old specs (unlikely) or add new ones.

Just throwing in my 2 cents here, I agree with all you've said.
Probably the most I'd like to see them add is perhaps some new major professions. I can't really think what they could add, but it's something new that wouldn't potentially destroy the game in any way.
New specializations would be great

But.. personally I'd like to see some buff to most professions .. like.. they actually make a difference more than just some extra damage attachment you throw on to every new piece of gear. I don't know.

Honestly I'd rather the professions just let you make sweet vanity items that you can sell on the AH. The reason the profs are weaker now is because needing them for the best loot gives you an unfair crippling and advantage over those that didn't choose to **** themselves over.

I'd rather professions be something that makes levelling easier/more fun like they are now and at the endgame you use them to make cool ****. Blizz are also doing something along the lines of the stable only this time it's going to be for toys and **** which means you don't need them in your inventory.

MoP marks a high-point in World of Warcraft. Not because it's particularly good, but because it is the start of Blizzard truly treating WoW like an MMO. Until MoP the game had to leech off old lore like Illidan, Arthas, and Deathwing. However from MoP onwards the expacs are going to flow into one another like how Garrosh will be the connecting force between MoP and WoD. MoP is also mostly entirely new lore with the only pre-existing lore being that Pandaren existed. Blizzard pulled their fingers out and created something truly unique to WoW and with the addition of the new alternate universe (where there is still a Medivh on beta-Azeroth with Sageras trapped within him) offers a LOT of stuff to work with whilst alpha-Azeroth is mended and more lore is put into it.

MoP is also a triumph of gameplay mechanics, even if the gameplay itself is fairly unchallenging. The inclusion of Scenarios shows a new focus on lore that previously wasn't there and allows Blizzard to be more story-heavy whilst including more lore characters in close proximity to the player.

Whilst MoP is the most disparate of expansions to this date it is also the most impressive and the one that leaves me in the most hope.

Then I don't see what the problem is here. MoP gets the lore out faster and better than the other expantions, though arguably we aren't as compelled by it as we were in Wrath of the Lich King, and the zones combine aesthetics and lore better than anywhere else in the game.

The behind-the-scenes stuff is pretty impressive too as steps seem to be being taken to improve on the biggest failing of MoP, that being the general lack of challenge.

Ah, but that problem is really less about how interesting the lore is and how much mass appeal it has. I find a lot of the Pandaria lore -very- interesting though I imagine you disagree. I think it is a nice breath of fresh air but y'know, different strokes for different folks.

But I think we can agree that WoD and the entire possibilities for the new alternate-reality Draenor (and by extension Azeroth) are innumerable and magnificent! I had a nice convo about it with Darthblam below if you're interested. I figure you might get something from it you hadn't previously considered.

Really it's mostly speculation. I don't know any more about WoD than anyone else could figure out with a search of the website and some creative thinking. It's more like how you've got the possibility that if Sageras can't manipulate Medivh into opening the portal to Draenor, since it requires people to work on both sides of the portal and Gul'Dan may end up dying... again, he may change his tactics to converting the humans, leading to the Humans being the minions of the Legion.

Cenarius never died. The Legion never invaded Azeroth the second time meaning the Nelves never met the humans. Illidan is still locked away in the Barrow dens. All of the Troll Kingdoms are still alive and well as are the seven kingdoms of men. Kezan is still populated with Goblins and the Worgen never became a problem. Dalaran's still in the EK, Ragnaros is still alive, The Exodar is still part of the Tempest Keep which is still in Draenei hands. The Tauren will be ravaged by the centaur without the aid from the Horde.